Barbaro Still Heard Talk Of The Chinese Paper-Currency From Travellers
Whom He Met At Azov About This Time; But After 1455 There Is Said To Be No
More Mention Of It In Chinese History.
I have never heard of the preservation of any note of the Mongols; but
some of the Ming survive,
And are highly valued as curiosities in China.
The late Sir G. T. Staunton appears to have possessed one; Dr. Lockhart
formerly had two, of which he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains
the other. The paper is so dark as to explain Marco's description of it as
black. By Dr. Lockhart's kindness I am enabled to give a reduced
representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able to
render it, but with some restoration, e.g. of the seals, of which on
the original there is the barest indication remaining.
[Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, Addenda, I.-III.) gives a facsimile
and a description of a Chinese banknote of the Ming Dynasty belonging to
the collection of the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences at St.
Petersburg. "In the eighth year of the period Hung-wu (1375), the
Emperor Tai-tsu issued an order to his minister of finances to make the
Pao-tsao (precious bills) of the Ta-Ming Dynasty, and to employ as raw
material for the composition of those bills the fibres of the mulberry
tree." - H. C.]
Notwithstanding the disuse of Government issues of paper-money from that
time till recent years, there had long been in some of the cities of China
a large use of private and local promissory notes as currency.
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